Tuesday Watercolour Class – Week Eight!

Do you see glass objects in our still life? Really? I see bright colours and interesting shapes. I wasn’t interested in discussing transparencies or reflections. These bottles and vases are very familiar shapes and can be understood even as flat silhouettes. That makes them good subjects for a bit of play and risk-taking.

My demonstration sheet may not make much sense so I’ll explain some of the ideas I presented. Wax has been used as a resist material in several places. I played with colour. For instance, in some areas, I started with blue, switched to green while still wet and went back to blue. I dropped pure water into a few painted areas and deliberately created blossoms; like little snowflakes. The strange-looking squiggles and strokes can be added over a dry area of a vase or bottle to vary the surface and suggest form.

In general, I was making suggestions; ways to vary the painting process with the goal of creating a new look. As usual, the students responded with guts and flair.

I can usually tell who painted each painting at the critique without any trouble. On days like this, with experimentation on the menu, it’s not as easy to assign each painting to it’s artist. Of course, I watched them as they worked but, if I hadn’t, I may not have been able to identify all of them. Success! New looks were achieved by trying new ideas.

Tuesday AM Critique

Tuesday PM Critique

Tags: Barry Coombs, Canada, Ontario, still-life painting, Studio Classes, Toronto, Toronto watercolour classes, watercolor painting, watercolour demonstration